DOME (Marine Environment)

Data portal used by OSPAR, HELCOM, AMAP and Expert Groups in the management of chemical and biological data for regional marine assessments

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​​About the data

A large portion of the data held are monitoring data submitted for the OSPAR CEMP and HELCOM COMBINE monitoring programmes and therefore follow specific monitoring programme guidelines. While these programmes have key components which are monitored yearly at defined stations, components which are under development are also included. The result is a broad spectrum of chemical parameters from metals, PAHs, brominated flame retardants, TBT and TBT effects in sediment and biota, to histopathology, ocean acidification and benthos and plankton data.

DOME also includes methods and quality assurance data such as the reporting of uncertainty on a single component basis to help in assessing comparable data.

Submit DataData are reported according to the Environmental Reporting Format version 3.2 in order to be quality controlled and entered into the database. Submissions of data may be made at any time.

for OSPAR and HELCOM yearly assessments data must be submitted by 1 September

Data files must be organised according to one data type per one monitoring year from one reporting laboratory*

The files must be screened for errors before submission which includes checks defined by the Regional Sea Conventions and ICES Expert Groups. Each submission receives an accession number which enables the status to be followed and summaries made. Once accepted into the database, files can be found via the DOME portal and the data are made available on the ICES Data Portal.

More information can be found in the FAQ DOME link.

* All institutes receive a lab code which is used to ensure a link between analytical laboratories and quality assurance data